AN: Hey guys, Hero here with another chapter. I'm terribly sorry about the long, long wait. It's entirely my fault, I've just been too busy with college. But I didn't want the holidays to come by without me delivering a Christmas present to all of you faithful viewers.

The next one should come by much sooner. Hopefully. So stay tuned, and let's continue with the shonen arc!

Hey guys, Siege here.

...that's it, really. I just wanted to be a participant. Anyway, enjoy the chapter.

道場修行〜身も心もマスター！

Training At The Dojo — Master Your Body And Mind!

"Are you done?" Lincoln deadpanned, his right-hand fingers clutching his left bicep while his foot tapped the platform on a brisk rhythm.

"Yeah, yeah, j-just… Just gimme… Gimme a—BWAHAHAHAHA!" Lynn crossed her arms over her stomach, bending over as tears rolled down her face. "Oh, man! Oh! That's the silliest thing I've… I think I've ever… Oh, wow. Woooow."

"I've seen you do silly martial poses before!" He offered, determined to defend his honor.

She took twenty more seconds to recover her breath and then she straightened up.

"Yeah! Something like this!"

She turned her hips and torso, opening her right leg on a ninety-degree angle, supporting her weight on the entire sole, bending the knees halfway through with the left toes scraping the surface of the marble tiles. One arm crossed over her chest and the other one extended towards him with open palms.

"This is a fighting pose. It protects," she made quick movements with her arms around and in front of her, "it's ready to strike," she threw three frontal punches and a wide-arc swing that could hit someone in the neck with the side of the hand, "and it doesn't telegraph my next move."

She threw a kick with her front leg so fast and hard that an air current hit Lincoln in the face like a strong breeze that carried her perfume.

He sniffed again. Her deodorant.

"That's what makes a good fighting pose. What you did… Honestly, I don't even know where to begin."

"Alright, it was dumb, I get it."

"It looked like a Quasimodo action figure after being eaten and pooped by Charles that one time he had parvovirus."

Lincoln sighed, dropping his shoulders and closing his eyes.

"I… Nevermind. Can we skip to the part where you teach me how to punch?"

Lynn let out a snarky chuckle. "That's not where we start. First, we need to warm up. That's the most important part of every training. You don't wanna go around pulling a muscle or straining your Aura, do ya?"

"You can strain your Aura?" He furrowed his brow.

"Your Aura is a part of your body," she explained as she approached him. "Most people can't see or feel it, but you can hurt it just like any other muscle. You can use part of it to empower your Archetype or your body, which is what we Martial Artists do. And Auras can also be corrupted."

"Like a Tainted," Lincoln pointed out. "Auras, souls… Yeah, I think I get it."

"Cool. Then let's just start with some basic warm-ups. Let's get the body ready, and then we'll work on the Aura. Do what I do, and try to keep up."

Lincoln expected brutal training from the get-go coming from Lynn, having prepared himself to soldier through a military-type boot camp. Instead, their warm-up was surprisingly easy to follow. They began with some breathing exercises, inhaling as much as his lungs could handle, keeping it inside for several seconds, and then slowly releasing it.

"Taking deep breaths helps to keep your heart rate under control," Lynn explained, standing right in front of Lincoln, so close he couldn't decide whether to focus on her eyes, her mouth, or the middle of her brow when she spoke. "You gotta keep control over your body and mind for your Aura to work right. If you get too stressed or anxious and you lose control, your aura won't do anything."

"No stress, got it," he replied, even though a voice in the back of his mind reminded him that he couldn't afford to fail.

Diablo made it clear: Lincoln needed to gain control of his Archetype as soon as possible. Otherwise, he might be unable to save his sisters the next time a great evil attacked them. He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't rely merely on luck to activate his Archetype and then hope he did it in time to help his family. No, their lives might depend on him having complete mastery over his Harem King powers.

So yeah, no stress.

"Alright, keep breathing like that, but do what I do."

For the next fifteen minutes, Lincoln tried his best to follow Lynn's lead. First, they started by shaking and moving their joints —knees, neck, shoulders, ankles, hips, and wrists. She changed their exercises every minute or so, which kept Lincoln from getting tired despite his terrible stamina. He started panting and sweating near the end, but Lynn reminded him to steady his breathing, which he realized helped a lot.

"How ya feelin'?" She asked him, doing jumping jacks three times as fast as Lincoln while still preserving a perfect form.

"I'm, uh, I'm good, I guess," he tried to ignore the sweat running down his forehead.

"Cool. Then let's just do some more stretching before we start your workout."

"What about the aura training?"

"We're leaving the best for last," she explained with a grin. "Besides, aura training can be… Well, let's just say it's easier to recover from a regular workout than aura training."

"No stress, no stress," he recited as a mantra.

He followed her lead, trying at first to do just as she did. However, soon enough the real struggle became to not simply drool at the sight presented in front of him. Lynn made sure to stretch her arms, legs, neck, torso, her entire body. And, naturally, Lincoln needed to pay attention to her movements to copy them.

How could he focus, though? How could he look at the way she raised her knees and not stop to look at the way the fabric of her dress slithered down, revealing those smooth, strong thighs? How could he study the way she lifted her arms and pushed them behind her head and ignore the way her chest pushed forward in his direction? How could he be asked not to waver when she let out a satisfied moan at the crack of a bone in her neck when she bent it against her shoulder?

He tried to look away, disgusted by his lecherous gaze, but Lynn kept calling for him to pay attention and watch his form. Part of him wanted to call it quits, to apologize to Lynn and go back to his room, locking himself up for the rest of eternity. How dared he not take the training seriously?

Perhaps, worst of all, remained the fact that his thoughts and fantasies took unexpected turns. Thoughts he couldn't blame on hormones, adolescence, or a mere appreciation of the strong female form. Those elements could maybe not justify, but explain his wandering eyes and the fast beat of his heart.

The desire to rest his head on her lap on a hill as they contemplated the sunset together, however? Now that he couldn't explain in a way he was ready to accept.

"Forget what your body wants," she said, snapping him out of his thoughts and showing him how to lunge. "It'll want to rest, lay down, give up, take five. But your body isn't in charge, you are. So suck it up and keep going."

"My body kinda feels in charge," he complained, struggling to complete one lunge.

Lynn signaled him to stay put as she stood up and walked next to him.

"Yeah, but your mind and soul are really the ones in control," she told him, as she made sure to correct his form, pushing his chest back into a straight position and increasing the distance between his feet. "Remember that time we went to that showdown between Lori and that chick Leni's friends with?"

"You mean Becky?"

"Yeah. You were carrying Lily for like a whole hour. Didn't you feel tired?"

"Well, yeah, of course I was tired. My arms hurt for the rest of the day."

"Why didn't you just drop her, then?"

He looked up at her with an Are-You-Stupid expression. "She was a baby. I couldn't just drop her."

"Oh, so your mind said that you couldn't drop her, even though your body was tired. I dunno man, sounds like the mind got a win over the body there to me."

She went back to her position in front of him and showed him how to get back up and then lunge with the other leg forward.

"That time I got just in time to save you from a ghost, I was already moving as fast as I could to get there," she mentioned, a slight grim tone coating her words. "Then I saw you there on the ground, with a ghost trying to take out your soul, so I went faster."

"Faster than you could?" He asked. "How is that even possible?"

She smiled at him. "Same way you kept carrying Lily when your arms couldn't take it anymore. Mind over body. Aura over muscles. I know it sounds weird, but you'll get it in time. Now let's keep stretching."

He tried to relate her words to his own experiences. He could see her point, but it felt weird trying to analyze it by comparing it to carrying his baby sister. Instead, he remembered the times he'd fought with Soulless and Diablo. The pain he'd felt, the exhaustion that surged through his every vein, and how he had still fought until the end. Did that count?

"Alright, last one," she announced, standing up.

"Oh, thank goodness."

"Stop crying and touch your toes with your hands."

Lincoln saw the ease with which she bent forward and managed to grab her toes with the palm of her hands. He then focused on her hair, tied neatly in two buns with red stripes that fell forward, exposing her neck. And then he realized that Lynn's Chinese martial arts outfit, while seemingly loose, managed to convey her rather petite and yet toned body. And even though she didn't seem to break a sweat just yet with that warm-up, there seemed to be a certain glistering quality to her soft, beautiful skin.

"Stop loafing and start stretching," she commanded.

He thanked the fact that she didn't look at where his eyes aimed and instead blamed it on his laziness. He tried to imitate her, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get even halfway to his toes.

"Nuh-uh!" Lynn said. "Don't bend your knees."

"But… I… Can't reach them!" He complained, trying to push past the burning sensation on his calves and hamstrings.

"What's your limit?" She asked, straightening up and walking next to him.

He showed her the point where it began to hurt.

"Alright, then hold it there. Now take a deep breath, and try to push further. An inch, half an inch, doesn't matter. Just a little more."

He breathed in and pushed. His legs shook, and he gritted his teeth, but he managed to reach just a tiny bit closer to his feet.

"There we go, bro! Now hold it there and breathe!"

"I… It hurts…" He admitted, his blood rushing down to his head.

"Then try harder. Breathe."

"Lynn, I don't—"

"Breathe!"

He slowly exhaled the air kept in his lungs, and to his surprise, he felt himself reaching an inch further before the pain returned and his legs turned to jelly. He would have tripped face first, but he grunted and kept his balance to the best of his ability.

"There we go!" Lynn celebrated, before grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him up, and then holding him in place to keep him from collapsing. "How did that feel?"

"Like someone burned my legs."

"So you felt the burn, nice. But didya realize what happened?"

"Uh… I couldn't even get halfway there?"

Lynn rolled her eyes. "Nope! It means you did your 110%."

He looked at her like she just said the sky was green. She blew a raspberry and punched him in the arm.

"Look, I told you to go as far as you could, right? Right?"

"Yeah."

"And then you pushed past that! You gave your all, and then some more. Boom! Math!"

Lincoln considered her words but ended up shaking his head.

"I get that you're trying to psyche me up or something, but even I know that I don't need an Archetype to stretch. I didn't give my 110%, whatever that means, I failed at even reaching— I don't know, maybe 60%."

"Oh, so you're the martial expert all of a sudden?" She glared at him and took one step forward, her face dangerously close to him, allowing Lincoln to pick on every single detail that conveyed her overwhelming honesty and fiery passion. "You're getting it all wrong, Stinkoln. You think your 100% is a perfect version of yourself, but this is the real world. You're you right now, not whatever version of yourself that you imagine you could be. So, right now, the most you could do is by definition your 100%, and you just pushed further. That's what this is all about: to constantly push past your limits. There's no imaginary version of yourself that you could never grow past. You can always aim to be better. Baby steps. Doesn't matter. I'm not psyching you up, I'm teaching you the ways of the Martial Artists. Are you gonna learn, or are you gonna do what you always do and downplay everything that makes you special?"

Lincoln, too stunned to reply, could only catch his breath and ignore the pain in his legs.

His prolonged silence and conflicted expression got to Lynn, who leaned back and rubbed the back of her head. Maybe she came off as too aggressive. She didn't mean to make him feel bad, but she only knew her own language. She didn't see anything wrong in her words, but people never seemed to get what she meant; and to succeed in getting him to love her, she needed to stay on his good side.

She sighed and forced a smile, speaking her next words in a soft, tender tone.

"Look, this is your first day, alright? You wanna control your Archetype and improve your body. That ain't happening right away. It's gonna take a while. But I know I can help you get both. I'm not gonna lie or go easy on you. It's gonna be hard, and this stuff sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you trust me, we'll both get what we want."

Lincoln nodded, shaking himself out of his stupor. Of course he trusted Lynn, he trusted all his sisters. And he knew what he got himself into when he asked her for help. In all honesty, he couldn't believe he hadn't been seriously injured yet. He expected difficulties, pain, exhaustion, and several bruises. But he also remembered the sight of his sisters surrounded by different enemies, and those memories alone were enough to willingly submit himself to such an endeavor.

"I trust you," he reassured her. "Sorry, uh… sensei?"

She beamed at the title. "You're forgiven, my noodle-arms student. Now that we're done with the warm-up, we can start the real training."

Her wicked smile made him gulp.

The warm-up couldn't have possibly prepared him for the real training. He'd never had a proper workout, and unfortunately, it showed.

Lincoln grunted in pain with every crunch Lynn asked him to do, which made him feel bad, considering that she did it all next to him at ten times the speed, with round weights on her wrists and ankles that cracked the marble floor when she gently placed them against it.

Lynn had to grab him by his legs to help him do pull-ups on a horizontal bar, which would have been denigrating enough for his self-esteem, only to be followed up by her pulling up so hard her body stood in the exact same physical place while the entire arena and the horizontal bar moved up and down in time with her arms.

He could barely bring himself to finish the push-ups series, even with Lynn cheering him up as she did her push-ups next to him. They could pass as regular push-ups, except she only used one finger, and she wore a special vest of the densest metal in the galaxy that generated its own gravity pull, attracting insects and small rocks to it.

By the time she dictated the end of the physical workout, every muscle in his body felt numb.

"Alright, Linc, you survived your first day," she congratulated him, playfully punching him in the arm. He fell face-first into the dirt, making her chuckle. "Don't die on me, bro. Now that you're exhausted, it's gonna be easier to feel your aura. You're not gonna focus so much on your body. So come on, this is what we're here for."

Lynn picked him up and carried him on her back, her heart blazing with the awesome feelings that being close to him always brought to her. Whenever she held him, she could feel herself growing stronger, her previous limits being pushed behind, her determination and strength increasing by what she could only assume was true love.

It couldn't be explained in any other way, and even if it could, she would have stuck with her explanation. It comforted her. It gave legitimacy to her feelings, those frowned upon by most.

Filled with the inexplicable happiness and energy he brought her, Lynn carried Lincoln back to the center of the marble platform with the Ying-Yang drawn on it. She sat him on the white dot inside the Yin, the one spec of order and masculinity within the unknown chaos of femininity. It seemed appropriate to have him there considering the point of their training, even though the meaning would probably go over his head unless she wasted an entire paragraph to explain it. Lucky for her, Lynn was a Martial Artist, not a fanfic writer, so no one could accuse her of lazy writing.

She sat in the opposite spot, the black dot within the Yang, crossed her legs, and stood with her back straight.

"Now, relax and stop thinking about your body."

"I can't feel my legs."

"That's it, that's what I'm talking about!" She complimented him. "Close your eyes, and remember to keep breathing like I taught you. Control your heart rate."

He somehow managed to do as she told him, and ever so slowly, the pain faded away, replaced with a sense of tranquility and security. The ever-present sound of battling and training going on all around him dimmed out, no longer registering in his mind. The whole world contained under an invisible dome, population: two.

"Nice," she said as if she felt the same things he did. "Your Aura and your Soul are basically the same. That's where your Archetype is written, and that's what I'm gonna help you find. Let's test if you can feel my aura. So try to see me even with your eyes closed."

Lincoln focused, but he didn't feel any different.

"What's it like?" He asked. "What am I looking for?"

"It's less than you can see me, and more like you can feel that I'm here next to you. Like the warmth of a fire, but you're not gonna feel it on your skin. You're gonna feel it in your aura. You'll know when you feel it."

He shut his eyes harder and searched for any sign, any extrasensory element. For a couple of silent minutes, he couldn't feel anything other than his growing frustration. It must have somehow made its way to Lynn, since just when he was about to quit, she spoke with an unexpected softness.

"Don't force it," she warned him. "It's our first day, if you can't feel it today, we'll just keep working on it."

"I know. I just wish I could control my Archetype better than this," he admitted.

"Hey, that's loser talk. We're in Winnersville, we don't speak that language. 'Sides, you Genre Shifted with Luan today, so we know you can feel this stuff on some level. Actually, let's talk about that. What did you do to Genre Shift into an Exorcist with Luan?"

The moment he dreaded. He knew exactly what he'd done: he'd focused on Luan's eyes, on their memories together, on the overwhelming feelings that had tethered them during battle, feelings he refused to explore in fear of what he might find. How could he phrase it in a way that wouldn't make Lynn revolt at the thought of spending any amount of time near him ever again?

"I… tried to focus on happy memories. Thinking about family stuff. You know, regular sibling feelings," he deadpanned, pleased with his ability to act natural even in the direst of circumstances.

Lynn struggled to keep the smile off her face. Just what she wanted, for his innate understanding of his abilities to be related to positive feelings. Not only would she be able to get a strong grasp on how successful her strategy to become his favorite sister had played out for the past couple of years, but she could also now take advantage of their training together to reinforce that bond and shape it into what she dreamed for the most.

To win the biggest, most important prize in the whole world, his heart. To be the one he loved the most, just the way she loved him. To be able to hold his hand without needing to come up with an excuse. To say those three big words without needing to pretend she was tough. To finally drop the act around him and be real with her brother. To be his one and only.

"Alright, then today's our lucky day!"

Excitement drenched in her every word, speaking so enthusiastically Lincoln opened his eyes to take a look at her. He found her staring deep into his soul with the most honest smile splattered on her face.

"Just think about some happy memories between the two of us. We have TONS! After all, I'm your favorite sister."

He didn't immediately fight back, which Lynn took as an absolute win.

"With Luan, I saw your aura reaching into hers to do the Genre Shift. For now, let's just focus on feeling mine, alright? Trying to get a sense of it. Think of a happy memory with me, and see if you can remember feeling anything special, not just a feeling, but rather… like an atmosphere."

"Okay. I'll try."

"As the Sensei always said, 'Do or do not, there is no try'. Or something like that. It's been too long since he last spoke."

Lincoln closed his eyes and readied himself.

Intrusive thoughts aside, thinking of good memories shared with Lynn proved to be no problem. As with any of his older sisters, the hard part would be to find any important moment in his life where she didn't play a big role. With Lynn, in particular, the memories overwhelmed him to the point he had trouble picking just one to focus on. They had significant, emotional moments that shaped him into the person that sat right then and there, but also countless episodes that one could list as mundane, and yet he wouldn't doubt to categorize as some of his fondest memories.

For the sake of moving forward, he chose that one time mom and dad asked the two of them to go to the grocery store for some last-minute shopping before Lisa's birthday. They were ten and eight, with Lynn just starting to get a better grasp of her powers. Mom had specifically asked her not to use her abilities unsupervised.

So, naturally, the first thing Lynn did as soon as they turned around the corner was to insist on using her abilities.

"Mom said we shouldn't," he reminded her.

"Mom's not here!" She objected. "Come on, Linky. I've been working really hard to show you this!"

He didn't seem convinced, which led her to try her ultimate weapon.

The puppy eyes.

"Pleeeeeease. I promise it'll be alright! If we do it we'll get there faster, and we can spend time on the swings before going back! You love the swings!"

He indeed felt truly compelled to spend time on the swings. And if Lynn said she worked hard on it, he trusted her. Lincoln nodded with a smile.

"Ok."

She giggled and punched the air in front of her. Then she turned her back to him and crouched down. "Come on! Hop in!"

Once she secured him on a tight piggyback, Lynn struck a silly pose, and a faint red glow began to cover her skin. With a confident chuckle, she made sure to hang on tight to her baby brother's legs, and then she began to sprint. At first, Lincoln simply laughed, happy to be riding his sister's back. But then she kept gaining speed, moving much, much faster than any ten-year-old had any right to.

And then she jumped, and with a single leap, she crossed the street.

"Wow!" He said, clutching his arms around her neck.

Lynn grinned. "That's nothing!"

She then began an exhibition in parkour, jumping from fences to trees, to lamposts, to the roof of a house. Lincoln felt like riding a rollercoaster, with the same amount of fear and excitement that a ride like that could cause. The adrenaline rush triumphed over the fear, and soon he could only laugh right into Lynn's ears.

The still-yet-to-be-determined Martial Artists rejoiced in Lincoln's angelic laugh, and his strong grip on her. Suddenly, the aura around her shone brighter, stronger than she knew was possible, enveloping the two of them as they darted through the neighborhood, leaving a trail of red and laughter behind them.

They got to the store in a fraction of the time it would have normally taken them. And on the way back, Lincoln didn't ask to go to the swings.

He asked for another ride on her back.

With his eyes closed, he could remember every last detail of the memory. The wind blowing past his ears, the smell of flowers as they flashed through the park, the warmth emanating from Lynn's body, reaching into the deepest parts of his heart.

And then he realized he felt it again. Not just a memory, but a feeling inside, a tingling in the back of his mind. The mental images of the memory vanished, and he found himself surrounded by darkness. Only not everything was dark: a fire burned in front of him. A warm, strong, aggressive, red blaze.

"I feel it," he said out loud. "I… I can feel you."

Lynn clenched her fists in excitement and conjured more of her aura.

The fire in front of Lincoln grew stronger, taller, and seemingly more dangerous.

"It's… It's there," he repeated, frowning when he realized something else. "It's… Excited. Happy, almost. It looks like… Kinda like it's…"

"Proud," Lynn finished for him. "So ding-dang proud of her little bro."

She could also read Lincoln's aura, watching it expand from his body, growing as he began to understand it and take control of it.

Yes, he realized; as strange as it sounded, the aura in front of him conveyed pride. Almost like he could read it. He detected pride, happiness, excitement, eagerness, and something else sprinkled in there…

And then he paled. He could read this much on his first attempt ever at interacting with someone else's aura. How much could Lynn read him? Did she always know how he felt at every moment? It couldn't be. If she could, then she would know the strange, weird stuff he'd been feeling lately around them, and she would hate him, and he could never live it down, and… and…

Lynn's smile dropped when she noticed the way Lincoln's aura retreated into him. Almost like a lantern blown by the wind. It dulled, and pulled itself back into him, away from her sight.

"What happened?" She asked, standing up.

Lincoln heard the rustling around him and opened his eyes. His focus faltered, he closed his heart to his surroundings, and any trace of Lynn's aura disappeared from his perception. The clamors and echoes of battles around them pierced his ears, bringing him back to the material world.

"You had it!" Lynn complained, crouching in front of Lincoln and planting her hands on his shoulders. "We were almost there! What did you do?"

"I-I don't know," he lied, looking away from her. "I just…lost it."

Lynn wanted to scream at him that he had more than "lost" it, he had completely shut his aura down even from her. She didn't even know such a thing could occur. What else didn't she know? He said he'd felt her aura. Did it push back? Did he walk away from it? It didn't look natural, that much she could tell. Were their auras somehow incompatible?

No way. No freaking way.

Lincoln grunted, and only then did Lynn notice her fingers clung to his shoulders tighter than she imagined. She pulled her hands off him as if he burned, and needed a double take to remind her role and mission right there. Keep Lincoln happy. Make sure to help him. Become his favorite sister.

"It's okay, don't worry," Lynn told him with a kindergarten-teacher tone, stretching every syllable and patting his shoulders. "We made some awesome progress. You got to see an aura, that's no joke. And on your first day! Chip off the old block, amirite?"

Lincoln appreciated her attempts at cheering him up, but she couldn't fool him. He could see the disappointment in her eyes. He knew he let her down. He let himself down, too. So close, he'd been so close… and then he messed it all up. He nodded at her words just to try to get the conversation going.

She realized right away he wouldn't keep eye contact with her. Had she scared him? Did she push him too far? He tried his best, he always did, she shouldn't have panicked at the thought of her aura scaring him, pushing him away from her. Lynn held the rank of Master at The Dojo, she shouldn't freak out over something so small. Even if she didn't consider it 'small'. Even if he meant the world to her.

The siblings stayed in uncomfortable silence for an awkward amount of time. Lincoln's anxiety and self-deprecation wouldn't let him recover from a perceived failure, and Lynn's stubbornness and inexperience with heart-to-heart talks kept her from apologizing and moving on with the training.

With perfect timing, however, someone else broke the ice.

"Loud!" Roared a deep, ugly voice.

Lincoln turned startled to look at the source of that yelling, while Lynn wasted no time in standing up and positioning herself between her brother and the two big, round figures that crept closer and stepped into the platform.

They looked like two wrecking balls, with short, slim legs, but huge torsos, bellies, and arms big enough Lincoln could take a nap on them. One of them had an undercut and the beginnings of a tomahawk, while the other let his black, untidy hair cover his eyes. Their double chins were tense along with the muscles of their jaws, and just in case their appearance didn't communicate their aggro attitude, they made sure to wear black karate uniforms with chains as belts.

"What are you two doing here?" Lynn asked, not at all intimidated by the mastodons approaching.

"Um, are they friends of yours?" Lincoln asked, taking cover behind his sister.

"Friends?!" The three repeated with disgusted expressions, before spitting to the side.

"As if anyone would be friends with Dumb and Dumber."

"Oh, yeah? And who would want to be friends with a shrimp like you?"

"Yeah, you're a shrimp!"

The two laughed and snorted before high-fiving and chest-bumping each other.

"The mouthbreather on the right is Hawk," Lynn explained, pointing at one of the boys. "And Pudge over there is Hanks. They're students at the Dojo, but they're so comically evil that not even Bolhofner wanted to train them. So they created their own style."

"BolStupid dropped us 'cause he realized we were getting stronger than him!" Hawk replied.

"Yeah, while your sisters got you stupid gigs with the Mayor, we've been training and growing more powerful!" Hank stomped the floor, and the entire arena shook.

"You should go talk to someone that cares," Lynn said dryly. "Now get outta here. I'm busy."

"You wish we'd leave!" Hawk said.

Lynn rolled her eyes. "Duh! That's why I told you to move your butts out of my training grounds."

"Well, tough luck! We're here to CHALLENGE YOU!"

The last two words became exponentially louder, booming and echoing all around the mountain. The parring, training, and fighting around them died down, leaving only the chirp of birds resonating in the distance. A kid standing on a bo staff jumped down and sat cross-legged, eyes glued to the marble platform. A guy in his early twenties stopped fighting seven copies of himself, and instead, they all picked nearby chairs and proceeded to start their bets. A teen girl that stood under a waterfall simply turned around to take a look at the incoming action.

Lynn took a deep breath to control her emotions. Fighting the two most disgusting Martial Artists in town didn't rank particularly high on her list of things she would rather do. She needed to teach Lincoln how to control his aura and how to achieve a better understanding of his Archetype. No time for distractions.

Then again, she considered, there might be some merit in letting Lincoln see what being a Martial Artist looked like, and all the things one could do with full control over Aura. After the fight against Diablo, Lisa theorized that failed Genre Shifts were the result of Lincoln trying to force a mental image of Archetypes without understanding what they were about. If she showed him the ropes with a demonstration, he would be closer to achieving a Genre Shift with her, entangling their auras and gaining a level of closeness hitherto unattainable.

Besides, Lynn needed some catharsis and no better way of getting it than beating some dumbasses in a duel.

"Alright, I see how this is," she mentioned, cracking her knuckles. "Fine! I'll give you guys your rematch. Lincoln, step aside and pay attention. Imma show you what a real Martial Artist looks like when we fight."